The Strategist

T E Lawrence, and leadership as influence

Adam Elkus observed that in counterinsurgency "everyone and their brother wants to be Lawrence of Arabia with the tribes, forgetting of course that Lawrence was an insurgent".

People also forget that Lawrence saw himself, and served as, an adviser to Feisal and other leaders of the Arab Revolt 1916-18. Not the great white commander-in-chief, not the puppet master.

Liddell Hart wrote that Lawrence had the gift of working through men, not standing over them*. To this astute observation I'd add that Lawrence was an influence par excellence.

The influence Lawrence exerted wasn't the shallow kind that sees the smooth talker shine in job interviews. It wasn't the unctuous patter of the used car salesman. Lawrence achieved great things because he was deeply interested in people, because he sought to understand them on their own terms, and because he worked to meld what he wanted with what they wanted in pursuit of a common goal.

* Basil Liddell Hart, T E Lawrence in Arabia and After (1934).

Sun-tzu, "deluxe edition" - bring it on!

Today I added to my collection of books entitled "The Art of War" by buying Penguin's 2003 edition of John Minford's translation of Sun-tzu.

Some will think that I've gone soft ... in particular I'm thinking about one reader who described Master Sun as "an over-rated hack". But that's OK. I love Sun-tzu. So does a guy I met in the lift at work today. And this is the "Deluxe Edition". Nice.

I've already explained why I believe Minford's translation is the one to read: "It is superb. It is crisp. It is poetic". Now for the steak knives bit - the Deluxe Edition has an excellent introductory essay, which situates Sun-tzu's work in its context of history, ideas and legacy. It presents the text in two formats: by itself, and accompanied by commentary from Chinese and European commentators. It has useful extras like a chronology, biographical notes on commentators, and suggestions for further reading.

I'm taking a sabbatical from work over the next couple of months. One of the things I'm going to do is get deep into reading traditional Chinese philosophical, literary and military classics. After reading this edition of Sun-tzu, and finishing a recent translation of the Tao Te Ching, I'm planning to read The Book of Changes (I-Ching) and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I'd welcome other suggestions.

On Machiavelli and "The Art of War"

Writing a classic study of the nature of war usually goes like this. A devastating conflict happens. In the aftermath, military thinkers interpret how war, and the way it's fought, has changed. The emphasis is on a fundamental break with the past.

Clausewitz, for instance, considered that the bloodletting of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars was one such fracture. He believed that these conflicts approached the theoretical state of total war - "untrammelled by any conventional restraints, broken loose in all its elemental fury". Writing after the First World War, Liddell Hart and Fuller articulated visions of a new form of conventional war based on emerging tactics, technologies and ideologies. Since the Cold War, strategists have written about emerging (or re-emerging) trends in conflict, like counterinsurgency, "war among the people", and cyber-conflict.

Niccolò Machiavelli's The Art of War (1521) is different. It starts with the view that contemporary military practice in Renaissance Europe is degenerate, and that if generals and statesmen wish to conduct wars effectively, they should look to the distant past for inspiration, to a golden age of military endeavour - ancient Rome and Greece...

"Cosimo: I should be very happy to learn if you have ever considered how it comes to pass that we are so degenerate, and that not only these exercises but all manner of military discipline, have now fallen into such neglect and disuse among us."

When you read The Art of War you realize that Machiavelli aimed to popularize classical military thought, principally the work of Vegetius (the late Roman author of De Re Militari), Polybius, Frontinus and Livy. He wanted to educate Renaissance commanders, who, he believed, were "strangers to all sorts of discipline and military knowledge", so that they could apply ancient wisdom to modern war.

Even with this in mind, it's surprising that Machiavelli makes relatively little reference to contemporary military practices and events. Most of the examples he uses to illustrate points derive from ancient times, like this comment on recruitment...

"Some, like Pyrrhus, would have their soldiers tall; others like Julius Caesar, prefer men who are active and vigorous."

This is strange given that the protagonist of The Art of War, the Italian mercenary captain Fabrizio Colonna, was an experienced soldier who'd fought for different masters in Italy. In a discussion on war you'd expect Colonna to draw on his own experiences, and those of his contemporaries, not ancient examples that he could know about only through books.

The same goes for Machiavelli himself. Although not a soldier, Machiavelli was well-versed in military affairs. He was active in Florence's siege of Pisa in 1509, and raised a Florentine militia which was modelled on ancient Greek and Roman armies. Machiavelli believed that citizen militias, when properly armed, trained and led, were superior to the mercenary forces of his day. He also considered that a militia acts as a bulwark against tyranny in a republic or principality, and is important for instilling civic pride and duty in citizens and subjects.

It's this kind of observation, not the commentary on ancient military practices, which makes The Art of War worth reading. If you want to study ancient military history, don't read Machiavelli; read Livy, Caesar, Xenophon, along with modern historical interpretations (Adrian Goldsworthy's In the Name of Rome is an excellent study of Roman generals). The same goes for medieval and Renaissance warfare.

For me, The Art of War is valuable for its discussion of the relationship between war and politics, the importance of a sound defence policy, and the appropriate role of military advisers in government. It's a good companion to Machiavelli's political works, The Prince and The Discourses.

Machiavelli reminds us that effective defensive capabilities are essential for any state that wants to safeguard its sovereignty, preserve the liberty of its citizens, and protect its interests and resources. Nor should defence policy be the preserve of elites and warrior castes within a state. The dangers of armed men seizing power, or advising rulers "to make war because they cannot support themselves without war", are as relevant today as they were 600 years ago.

"Strike with chaos" - who's the best translator of Sun-tzu?

So, you haven't read Sun-tzu's The Art of War, but you'd like to. Trouble is, which translation?

I've got two translations of this ancient Chinese classic on warfare and strategy. One is by Thomas Cleary, published by Shambhala in 1988. The other is by John Minford, published by Penguin in 2003.

Cleary's translation is a dog. It is long-winded. It is dull. Avoid it.

Minford's translation is superb. It is crisp. It is poetic. Buy it - either the 2003 edition, or the Penguin Great Ideas version which is small, slim and easy to carry around. If you're a soldier, tuck it into a trouser leg pocket. If you're a suit, carry it inside your jacket.

Payoff? Next time you have to endure a business presentation or a brainstorming session, sit at the back of the room, ignore the powerpoint rangers and facilitators, pull out Minford's Sun-tzu and read him instead.

Here's how Cleary translates a passage in the first part of The Art of War: 

Draw them in with the prospect of gain,
Take them by confusion.

And this is how Minford renders the same passage:

Lure with bait
Strike with chaos.

"Strike with chaos". When I read this, I think of Caesar striking south from the Rubicon with the XIII Legion, driving Pompey to Greece, Pharsalus and destruction. Of the Mongols scything through Russia and Europe from 1238 to 1241. And of Jason Bourne, striking fear into the dark hearts of renegade CIA operatives in "The Bourne Ultimatum".

I won't labour the point. Minford's translation sings. It makes the study of war and strategy come alive. Cleary makes me yawn.

Food for thought for future generals

At the Committee of Public Safety Joseph Fouche links to a British Staff College reading list on military theory and strategy. He applauds the choice of Clausewitz, Colin Gray and Rupert Smith, but criticizes the inclusion of Martin van Creveld and Mary Kaldor ...

"if you agree with Kaldor you might as well take that fat juicy volume of On War and all of classical strategic thought for that matter, soak it in gasoline, and light it on fire."

Ouch!

The idea with reading lists like this is to expose future senior commanders to the work of a range of thinkers. You may not agree with what Kaldor or van Creveld have to say, but they are influential and insightful and it makes sense to understand their ideas.

Joseph Fouche argues that Staff College students should "probably master the masters first and worry about the newest fashion later". But why can't they read both? We're talking about experienced officers who are being prepared for senior command appointments, not callow cadets.

Ideas about human security (Kaldor), demise of nation-states and 4GW (van Creveld) and war among the people (Smith) are relevant to the situations that these commanders will encounter. If nothing else, they will provide food for thought.

Kilcullen on Islamic radicalization in Europe

Last week Alex Evans wrote that Global Dashboard is a "hotbed of David Kilcullen fandom". Bravo! I am too, and as you know I've been reading Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla.

In the book Kilcullen writes at length on counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also looks at guerrilla warfare in East Timor, Pakistan and southern Thailand (the long-running Malay separatist struggle). Another interesting section deals with Islamic radicalization in Europe...

Read the rest of this post here at Global Dashboard, where I'm guest blogging in June...

Sunday reflection: on "The Accidental Guerrilla"

The navigator

I've got a rotten cold, so last night I went to bed early with a copy of David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla. Several hours later I finally went to sleep, after finishing off the evening with some light reading - a skip through Frederick Forsyth's classic thriller The Odessa File.

Kilcullen's book is a study of modern guerrilla (or 'hybrid') warfare, and how to deal with it. It draws on Kilcullen's extensive practical and theoretical experience as an Australian army officer, counterinsurgency advisor to the US government, and conflict ethnographer (his doctorate from the University of New South Wales looked at the impact of guerrilla warfare on non-state political systems in traditional societies).

I'll fully review this book when I've finished it (see Zenpundit for another take on Kilcullen). But for now you may be interested in Kilcullen's reflection on the Iraq War. "The war," Kilcullen writes, "in grand-strategic terms, was a deeply misguided and counterproductive undertaking, an extremely severe strategic error, and a model of exactly how not to do business." He considers that the "Surge" of 2007, which focused on securing and splitting the Iraqi population from the insurgents, was a way of saving "ourselves from some of the more egregious consequences of a bad decision to invade Iraq in 2003".

This is one of the things I like about Kilcullen, and one of the things that's valuable about this book. Kilcullen is his own man, not afraid to call a spade a spade and make life uncomfortable for the elites.

By the way, the picture (another lunchtime shot) shows the Kupe group statue at Taranaki St Wharf, Wellington. The three figures are Kupe, the legendary Polynesian navigator, who's said to have discovered New Zealand, his wife Te Aparangi, and the tohunga (priest) Pekahourangi.

Clausewitz on leadership and coup d'œil

For someone who stressed the primacy of political control over military means, Clausewitz had surprisingly little to say, in On War, about what makes an effective political leader. But he had plenty to say about military leadership, at the level of the army commander, in chapter 3 of Book 1, "On military genius".

In this chapter, Clausewitz develops a profile of the ideal commander, "the military genius". The commander must be courageous, resilient, and attuned to grappling with uncertainty, stress and violence. He must be energetic, ambitious, and imaginative. The commander must possess an inquiring mind and an iron will. He must have an intuitive sense of terrain - "the faculty of quickly and accurately grasping the topography of any area" - and a thorough grasp of national policy.

Importantly, the commander must have coup d'œil, which Clausewitz characterized as the

"quick recognition of a truth that the mind would ordinarily miss or would perceive only after long study and reflection."

This idea of coup d'œil - the ability to quickly seize up the essence of a situation - is essential for leaders, civilian or military, who deal with fast changing situations of great complexity and uncertainty. If you can quickly seize up a situation, you may not get every detail right, but you have the basis on which to act confidently, swiftly and decisively.

Postscript: check out Nate's extended discussion of Clausewitz and military genius, here at Chicago Boyz (part of the recent Clausewitz Roundtable).

Mentions in dispatches

• Visions of Empire on the strategic thinking of Rear Admiral J C Wylie, an "American Clausewitz".

• Real Climate on the connection between lilacs and early spring.

• Coming Anarchy defends its patron saint, Robert D Kaplan, against harsh criticism. Others disagree...

David Kilcullen on "accidental guerrillas"

I recommend this Danger Room interview with counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen. In the interview, Kilcullen outlines his idea of the "accidental guerrilla"...

Interviewer: When did the concept of the "accidental guerrilla syndrome" really start to click?

Kilcullen: It was field observation over ten years or so, but the name came to me one afternoon near the Khyber Pass... My local escort commander pointed out to me that he and his guys were the real foreigners on the Frontier, whereas the al-Qaeda guys had been embedded there for a generation. He said no outsider could tell the locals apart from the terrorists except by accident. And when outsiders intervene to deal with the global terrorists hiding out in areas like the FATA, it turns out people get upset, and the local community coalesces around rejecting outside interference, and closes ranks to support the terrorists....

This has happened in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Europe - basically everywhere I've worked since 9/11, I have observed some variation on this pattern. I call the local fighters "accidental guerrillas," because they end up fighting on behalf of extremists, not because they hate the west but because we just turned up in their valley with a Brigade, looking for AQ. And I calculate 90 to 95 percent of the people we've been fighting since 9/11 are accidentals, not radicals."

What does this tell us about the 'War on Terror'? That the war, and its campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, are mostly a sham. That the west has wasted a great deal of time, effort, lives and public money fighting people who mostly were not its enemies, at least not to begin with.    

It would be interesting to see if Kilcullen's "accidental guerrilla" concept also applies to the "War on Drugs". If American planes and agents spray or burn coca crops in remote Latin American valleys, does that simply drive local farmers into the arms of the drug lords?

Clausewitz - stating the bleedingly obvious

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable (hosted at Chicago Boyz), an exploration of the ideas of Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz as set out in his classic work "On War".

Clausewitz was not afraid to state the bleedingly obvious. In Book 8 of On War, he wrote that war's most dangerous feature is "its tendency toward the extreme, and of the whole chain of unknown possibilities which would follow".

"Well of course," you might exclaim. "Everyone knows that!"

But do we really "know that"? Like a vicious dog that slips its lead and savages a young child, war results in chaos, carnage and unanticipated consequences which can be felt decades, even centuries, later. In large part, 20th century history was about war "untrammelled by any conventional restraints, broken loose in all its elemental fury".

Yet for something that's so obvious, it's staggering that time and time again, political leaders and military commanders go blithely to war without even, as Clausewitz suggests, "first being clear" about ends, ways and means. With a handful of notable exceptions, politicians and generals continue to believe that wars can be won quick and dirty. Perhaps this is why they're attracted to false but seductive theories - like blitzkrieg, strategic bombing, and the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) - which promise that, in the right hands, war can be a precise instrument of policy.

In Book 8, Clausewitz seems to argue for moderation in war-making. To be useful, war must be controlled - prevented from escalating into absolute war. The vicious dog, when fenced inside the backyard or held firm on a lead, has its uses - to deter criminals, for instance. But if the dog  escapes from the yard or slips its lead, all hell breaks loose and its rampage can only be ended with great difficulty and after immense cost. 

According to Clausewitz, one way to 'control war' is to recognize that it has many varieties, and that it's valid to fight "minimal wars" where the objectives are limited, e.g., wars which "consist in merely threatening the enemy, with negotiations held in reserve". Another way is to match ways and means to ends, to "act on the principle of using no greater force, and setting no greater military aim, than would be sufficient for the achievement of [the] political purpose".

Then there's the idea of subordinating military objectives to political aims - keeping the military on a tight leash. This is one of the big ideas in On War, but it is an imperfect way of achieving control, as it assumes that politicians will be more cautious and less bloodthirsty than their military chiefs. This has often proved not to be the case.

"On War" and the tension between ideas

At the Clausewitz Roundtable, Nate bids farewell to Clausewitz with closing thoughts on military genius. He also identifies an important internal dynamic of On War...

"Tension. With Clausewitz, all ideas are held in tension with other ideas. There are no pure principles that can be meaningfully examined on their own merits. Such principles must be always examined together with all connected concepts.

An excellent example is the Clausewitzian concept of the Defense. To Clausewitz, there is no such thing as a pure defense, for even in defense there is resistance to the enemy. Thus the defense is intermingled with the offense. Other concepts held in tension are Absolute & Real War, Moral & Physical factors, Military & Political considerations, Strategic & Tactical, and the trinity of the Government, the Army, and the People."

Clausewitz - "A dark and menacing cloud"

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, an exploration of the ideas of Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz as set out in his classic work On War. In this post I look at chapter 26 of Book 6 (which focuses on defence).

Clausewitz considered that "people's war", or popular resistance to an invader, is one of several factors that makes defence the stronger form of war. As the enemy advances deeper into another country, his forces become dispersed, his formations become depleted, and his supply lines become stretched. The more spread out the enemy is, the more vulnerable he becomes to guerrilla attacks by "militias and bands of armed civilians".

During the Napoleonic wars, people's war was regarded as a new phenomenon; its potency had been demonstrated in Spain and Russia where guerrilla resistance played a significant part in wearing down the French invaders. But chapter 26, which analyzes people's war, shows that Clausewitz was struggling to come to terms with its potential. It's clear that he viewed guerrilla activity as auxiliary to the action of the army, perhaps analogous to the light troops who in battle skirmished to the front and on the flanks of heavy infantry formations...

"Militia and bands of armed civilians cannot and should not be employed against the enemy main force - or indeed against any sizeable enemy force. They are not supposed to pulverize the core but to nibble at the shell and around the edges. They are meant to operate in areas just outside the theatre of war - where the invader will not appear in strength - in order to deny him these areas altogether."

If Clausewitz underestimated the revolutionary potential of people's war, he correctly grasped its essential nature...

"A general uprising...should be nebulous and elusive; its resistance should never materialize as a concrete body, otherwise the enemy can direct sufficient force at its core, crush it, and take many prisoners....On the other hand, there must be some concentration at certain points: the fog must thicken and form a dark and menacing cloud out of which a bolt of lightning may strike at any time."

There's a echo of this in T E Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Setting out a theory of guerrilla warfare, as applied during the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule of 1917-18, Lawrence described guerrillas as "an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas....a vapour, blowing where we listed." Lawrence's thinking was influenced by Clausewitz, who he described as "intellectually so much the master" of the other great military theorists. 

Where the two men differed was that Clausewitz saw guerrilla bands as auxiliary to the conventional army, whereas Lawrence foresaw guerrilla formations operating as strategic forces in their own right.

Clausewitz, "On War", Book 5: sound advice for small armies

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, an exploration of the ideas of Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz as set out in his classic work On War.

"God is on the side of the biggest battalions", or so the maxim goes. It was an article of faith for Clausewitz, who wrote that

"The best strategy is always to be very strong; first in general, and then at the decisive point....there is no higher and simpler law of strategy than that of keeping one's forces concentrated."

This quote brings together three ideas that are key to understanding Clausewitz's view of how battles are won: concentrating superior numbers at decisive points.

So, did Clausewitz believe that only big armies have a hope in hell on the battlefield? Largely yes, but in Book 5, which deals with the organization and deployment of military forces, Clausewitz comments that war is not always impossible for a markedly weaker army:

"The more restricted the strength, the more restricted its goals must be; further, the more restricted the strength, the more limited the duration. These two directions form escape routes, so to speak, for the weaker side."*

This idea can be adapted as sound advice for politicians of small countries with small armies (like New Zealand) and/or politicians who have allowed their armies to run down (again, like New Zealand). If you don't prioritize defence spending, and if you allow your military to wither, don't expect those forces to be up for much, either in a crisis or in multiple deployments. Keep operations short and simple.

Sadly, politicians tend to run-down military forces and hope that they will work miracles when crisis hits, with the inevitable results. As Thucydides wrote in History of the Peloponnesian War, "hope is by nature an expensive commodity".

* Clausewitz, On War, Book 5, Chapter 3.

Clausewitz, "On War", Book 4: battle as the centre of gravity

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, an exploration of the ideas of Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz as set out in his classic work On War.

In Book 4 Clausewitz puts battle at the heart of war...

"since the essence of war is fighting, and since the battle is the fight of the main force, the battle must always be considered as the true centre of gravity of the war." [4.9]

There's little doubt that "the battle"  - the clash of armies at a particular site over a limited time period - was the centre of gravity during the Napoleonic Wars. But this idea doesn't hold for modern conflicts - battle, where it occurs, may be the most dramatic event, but it is not the centre of gravity.

What does "centre of gravity" mean? I take it to mean the situation where the outcome of the campaign or war is ultimately decided. In the First and Second World Wars, the centre of gravity was the use of resources. The nations that won were those that most effectively mobilized, coordinated and utilized their human and material resources.

In insurgencies, the centre of gravity is the people and politics. The insurgent tries to gain the allegiance of the people, and establish alternative governments in "liberated areas". The counter-insurgent seeks to isolate the insurgent from the population, and to boost the legitimacy of the authorities. In a counterinsurgency, military action is a subordinate aspect of overall operations, and - as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland - the military may be used for purposes other than attacking the enemy, e.g., securing the population, developing infrastructure. 

In modern conventional war there is arguably no "battle". Combat is characterized by a flow of fighting, the tempo of which rises and falls in different places and at different times. Military action is directed less against the enemy's "main force" (his frontline combat formations), more against his headquarters, communications, supply lines and intelligence systems. The aim is to destroy the enemy's ability to think, decide and act. Here the centre of gravity is the network of decision-makers, machines and infrastructure that animates a military force.

Even if battle is no longer the be-all and end-all, Clausewitz's centre of gravity concept is a useful one. It's something that politicians and commanders should ponder as they prepare for war: "in this conflict, what is the centre of gravity - the situation where the outcome will be ultimately decided?".

"Outrageous as a (cyber) sea"?

I like the way Adam Elkus integrates the ideas of classic military strategists - like Jomini, Mahan and Lawrence - with nascent practices of cyberwar:

"With movements massing force in cyberspace for viral propaganda and debilitating denial of service attacks, Antoine-Henri de Jomini’s long-obsolete theories of mass and concentration have paradoxically been revived in cyberspace.

Cyber-mobilization is a process of massing force against decisive points. Above all, cyber-mobilization is a popular form of conflict, not a bunch of elite soldiers typing away in cubicles trying to increase their unit’s Google pagerank. It thrives on public participation and dies without it."

A bit further down, Adam describes cyberspace as "the digital ocean". This is an interesting comparison. In the 19th century the Royal Navy policed the world's sea lanes, allowed trade to flow freely; the US Navy performs a similar role today. In the future, is there scope for cyberwar agencies to work together to police the global digital ocean against those groups that use cyberspace for ill - criminals, terrorists, 'information militias' and renegade powers?

Or like Milton's abyss - "outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild"* - is cyberspace just too vast and dispersed to be policed effectively?

* John Milton, Paradise Lost, VII.213

Thank heavens I flunked Econ 101...

I did economics at high school, enjoyed it, and got good marks in the subject. Different story at university. I was put off economics, mainly because I'm not much chop at mathematics. For a maths ignoramus there didn't seem to be a future in the subject beyond the first semester of Econ 101.

But if Anatole Kaletsky is right, this was probably a lucky break...

"One reason why such fruitful [non-mathematical] insights have been ignored is the convention adopted by academic economists some 30 years ago that all serious ideas must be expressed in equations, not words. By this weird standard, the intellectual giants of the subject — Adam Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, Hayek — would not now be recognised as serious economists at all."

Kaletsky argues that mainstream economics has been discredited by the events of the global financial crisis. (He's not the only one saying this, and people like Nicholas Nassim Taleb - author of The Black Swan - were making similar arguments well before the crisis.) His article outlines the ideas of unorthodox thinkers - like Benoît Mandelbrot and George Soros - and explains why their ideas should be heeded.

What can a dead Prussian teach us about leadership?

Adam Elkus has written about the thinking of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the German general and strategist of the 19th century. This comment about the leadership principle known as Auftragstaktik ("mission tactics") caught my eye:

The celebrated German system of "mission orders" was also something that Moltke pushed hard for. He correctly saw that talented subordinates, if properly trained and possessed of the right ethos, could achieve greater results if left to their own devices. Mission orders allowed them to carry out the objective in the manner they saw fit.

This stands in stark opposition to the extreme micromanagement that often prevails in the modern era, the worst example of which was President Johnson selecting bombing targets from the Oval Office during the Vietnam war.

There's a lesson in this for today's managers. "Here's where we have to get to," the best manager says to his staff. "Up to you how we get there". Trouble is, this kind of thinking is lost on many executives, who are control freaks, don't trust their staff, fear uncertainty, and see only risk not opportunity.

Adam's piece is another reminder that we can learn a lot about leadership, organization and strategy from classic military thinkers like Clausewitz, Sun-tzu and von Moltke.

Clausewitz, "On War", Book 3: the Prussian as prophet

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, a debate about the ideas of Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz.

In chapter 17 of Book 3 we see Clausewitz as prophet, and a remarkably accurate one at that. Writing about the Napoleonic wars, Clausewitz identified three trends that would characterize combat in the Second World War.

Clausewitz, "On War", Book 2: the fog of war

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, a debate about the ideas of Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, hosted at Chicago Boyz.

Many people talk about "the fog of war", even if they don't know who coined the phrase. It was Clausewitz, and he used it to describe the pervasive difficulties of uncertainty, distorted perception and unreliable information that plague the commander in battle:

"all action takes place...in a kind of twilight, which, like fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are." [2.2]

In Clausewitz's era - the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries - the commander's sense of the battle was shaped by what he and his aides could see and hear, and on reports coming to him from subordinates. Good generals stuck close to the action, but much was hidden by ground, trees, mist, rain, noise, and the billowing clouds of white smoke that issued from thousands of muskets and guns firing. Information was slow in coming, contradictory, fragmented and inaccurate. Perceptions were distorted by worry, fear, excitement, fatigue and mental strain.

"Whatever is hidden from full view in this feeble light," Clausewitz wrote, "has to be guessed at by talent or simply left to chance".

Clausewitz, "On War", Book 1: it sounds so simple

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, a debate about the ideas of Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, hosted at Chicago Boyz. Please post comments here.

Who can forget Clausewitz's dictum, "war is an act of policy"? The government decides to use war to achieve a policy objective. The military is ordered to fight the war. Its commanders know the part they must play and how that contributes to attaining the objective.

It sounds so simple. But as Clausewitz reminds us, "everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult". When it comes to war, many politicians overlook the obvious - the need to clearly establish what it is they want to achieve. 

What makes for a good policy objective in relation to the use of war? I'm extrapolating a bit, but this is what I take from On War:

• The objective must be clear from the outset, as must the military's role in achieving that objective. The government must answer the following questions: "what is it that needs to be achieved?", "how will the military help achieve this objective?", and "are there alternatives to the use of force that will achieve the objective either as efficiently or more efficiently?".

• The objective must be realistic, and in proportion to the military and other resources at the government's disposal.

• It must not be open-ended. A realistic time limit should set, and regular review points instituted, so progress can be assessed and strategy adjusted.

• It should be clear that if the objective is achieved, real advantage will result.

In recent times, how many wars fought by western nations meet these basic criteria? Gaza, Afghanistan, Lebanon (2006), Iraq...? It would be interesting, and perhaps instructive, to run the rule over these conflicts.

The Clausewitz roundtable

Philosopher of war: Carl von Clausewitz.

This is going to be "awesome" (as my six-year old son would say):

Lexington Green at Chicago Boyz:

"I am pleased to announce that in January, 2009 Chicagoboyz will begin hosting a roundtable discussion of the classic work of military theory, On War by Carl von Clausewitz."

I'll be taking part, with other bloggers, scholars and military personnel. We'll be reading and commenting on the 1976 translation of On War, edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Not the "weirdly edited and seriously misleading Penguin edition", put together by Anatol Rapoport in 1968.

More information to come. Stand-by.

Kilcullen - what's going wrong in Afghanistan

This is a great read (h/t Glamdring). Counterinsurgency guru David Kilcullen writes about the west's strategy in Afghanistan - what's right, what's wrong. Actually, mostly about what's wrong. Here's a snippet:

"Police are another main issue. We have built the Afghan police into a less well-armed, less well-trained version of the Army and launched them into operations against the insurgents. Meanwhile, nobody is doing the job of actual policing—rule of law, keeping the population safe from all comers (including friendly fire and coalition operations), providing justice and dispute resolution, and civil and criminal law enforcement.

As a consequence, the Taliban have stepped into this gap; they currently run thirteen law courts across the south, and ninety-five per cent of the work of these courts is civil law, property disputes, criminal matters, water and grazing disputes, inheritances etc.—basic governance things that the police and judiciary ought to be doing, but instead they’re out in the countryside chasing bad guys."

This seems to be part of a wider pattern: in counterinsurgencies, police forces get turned into paramilitary outfits. Is this because, as Kilcullen suggests, people confuse security with engaging the enemy in combat? Or is it a hangover from the British empire, where paramilitary policing was a key way of securing unstable frontier regions (Pakistan's Frontier Corps and India's Assam Rifles are modern day examples of this tradition).

The end of the wasted years?

On Sunday I wrote that an Obama victory in the US presidential election would not bring epochal change. Now, having listened to Obama's acceptance speech, I may need to revise that view. Here's part of the reason why:

"For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century."

This is a man who understands that climate change, resource depletion, and man's devastation of the natural world are grave threats to global security and to human survival. This is a man who understands that these threats need to be met. Let's hope that we can put the wasted years of the Bush/Cheney administration behind us, and move to take concerted action.

"He was like water, or permeating oil"

A book I often return to is T E Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935). One reason is that Lawrence had deep insight into the characters of the men he served with.

Consider what Lawrence wrote about General Gilbert Clayton, chief of British intelligence in Egypt between 1914 and 1917:

"Clayton made the perfect leader for such a band of wild men as we were. He was calm, detached, clear-sighted, of unconscious courage in assuming responsibility. He gave an open run to his subordinates. His own views were general, like his knowledge: and he worked by influence rather than by loud direction.

It was not easy to descry his influence. He was like water, or permeating oil, creeping silently and insistently through everything. It was not possible to say where Clayton was and was not, and how much really belonged to him."

I love the sentence "he was like water, or permeating oil, creeping silently and insistently through everything." It's a superb description for a intelligence chief, an ad man, or a spin doctor.

Taken as a whole, the passage suggests a model of leadership that is hard to beat. It reminds me of Colonel John Boyd's famous maxim: to be somebody or to do something. 

An officer and an intellectual

Whether you agree or not with the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, you can't but admire US General David Petraeus, who is leaving Iraq to taken command of CENTCOM.

Under Petraeus, the security situation in Iraq has improved significantly. Yet he is realistic about the prospect for success in Iraq, as seen in this recent BBC interview.

"I think everyone in Iraq shares certain concerns - the people on the street, the coalition, Iraqi leaders. They're all keenly aware of these storm clouds that are out there looming on the horizon and that could materialize into very serious problems if they're not dealt with properly - the integration of the Sons of Iraq into Iraqi security forces, other employment is very very important.

So it's going to take a lot of continued hard work. But I think the bottom line is, when I took command...I said that Iraq is hard but not hopeless...I think that Iraq is now still hard but hopeful."

In another part of the interview, Petraeus said that 'victory' is not a word he would use: "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not war with a simple slogan."

Petraeus' cautious view is strikingly different to the bluster that has emanated from the White House since the Iraq war began. That's not surprising. Petraeus is a model of the soldier-intellectual. His remarks echo the idea, explained by another military thinker, British General Sir Rupert Smith, in The Utility of Force, that "we live in a condition of continuous confrontation and conflict" rather than "one of war and peace".

In this condition, there is no victory through military action. The able commander uses force judiciously to bring about a state of affairs: a breathing space, a stalemate, or a stable situation. This then allows other levers - political, economic, social - to be used to achieve a lasting accommodation and settlement.

On hybrid wars

In "Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars" (December 2007), Frank Hoffman proposed that wars in the 21st century will have a hybrid nature. These conflicts will:

• blur conventional warfare, irregular and guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and criminal activities;
• involve adversaries integrating a range of strategies, tactics and technologies to achieve political and military objectives;
• be carried out by states, quasi-states, and non-state entities;
• put the US and western militaries at a distinct disadvantage because adversaries will not fight the way the west prefers, i.e., conventional warfare.

Hoffman suggested that the 2006 Lebanon war between Israel and Hezbollah- a state fighting a non-state entity - is the prototype of a hybrid conflict. Hezbollah used a mix of conventional military capabilities, irregular and decentralized military organization and tactics, and sophisticated information operations (e.g., TV footage of houses destroyed by Israeli air and artillery fire) to stymie Israeli operations.

The recent Georgian war is another example of hybrid war, except that this involved a large state - Russia - combining conventional all-arms fighting, the use of irregular forces (Ossetian militias), information operations, and cyber-attacks, to take apart the Georgian forces.

Hoffman overstates the novelty of the hybrid war concept - most wars have been of a hybrid nature. But "Conflict in the 21st Century" has some interesting things to say about the nature of the entities that will fight, and the methods they will use. From the article I drew two principal ideas.

Firstly, that non-state entities, like Hezbollah and the Taliban, are geopolitical forces to be reckoned with.  Mixing political and religious mobilization, different war fighting modes, a range of military and civil technologies, and sophisticated information operations, they will be capable of holding their own against large states and their militaries, perhaps even winning.

Secondly, that some states will become adept in using hybrid measures to wage war, for offensive or defensive purposes. Russia, China and Iran are the obvious candidates, for the moment at least.

As Mark Safranski (aka Zenpundit) suggests in a recent post at CTlab/Review, hybrid war offers interesting possibilities for small states that want to defend themselves against larger and predatory powers. I'll explore this idea further in a follow-up post.

Break Strategy

The great strategists, and all modern armies, hold that there are a handful of 'principles of war'. These guide soldiers in the conduct of war, assisting them to, in the words of Sun-tzu, "confront chaos with discipline".

Younghusband at Coming Anarchy is running a series of posts on Canada's "10 Principles of War". The master principle is "selection and maintenance of the aim". In war, according to the Canadians, "the ultimate aim is to break the enemy's will to win".

I have great difficulty with this aim. What exactly is the "enemy's will to win"? How do you break it? And what are the unintended consequences? We know that fanatics draw courage and determination from trials of strength and adversity. By seeking to break the enemy's will, do we actually fortify it?

The statement rightly recognizes that war is a violent clash of wills. What it fails to recognize is that the enemy is unlikely to have a single will. Within any enemy organization, be it a government, army, insurgent movement, terrorist group or militia, there will be different factions, different ways of thinking, and different views on objectives, strategies and tactics. This is difficult to "break", but it does offer numerous opportunities for overcoming an enemy. "The warrior shapes his victory from the dynamic of the enemy", wrote Sun-tzu.

Use of the word 'break' implies that there is only one way of overcoming an enemy - through overwhelming force - and that victory consists of the enemy's total defeat. It neglects other, time honoured ways of achieving one's aims in war, like negotiating, blockading, subverting, and co-opting. It also ignores the reality of modern warfare - that even with great manpower and sophisticated technology it is often not possible to 'win' except at the point of complete devastation and exhaustion.

So, what should be the ultimate aim? I like Sun-tzu's idea, expressed in The Art of War: "The highest form of warfare is to attack strategy itself". Don't focus on something as nebulous as breaking "the enemy's will to win". Break tangible things, like the enemy's objectives, plans, and ideas. Break his strategy.

Shane on Maritime Strategy

Yesterday I wrote about Sir Julian Corbett's Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. Shane offered a personal reflection...

"An excellent book. I read it some 15 or so years ago, as a young civilian scientist at a US navy lab, and it cured me for good of Mahan's syndrome (the curious belief that bigger guns and more dreadnoughts were all one needed to command the sea lanes of communication)."

Ring a Bell?

This sounds familiar. British naval strategist Sir Julian Corbett on the value of theory and critical thinking in relation to war:

"How often have officers dumbly acquiesced in ill-advised operations simply for the lack of the mental power and verbal apparatus to convince an impatient Minister where the errors of his plan lay?

How often, moreover, have statesmen and officers...been unable to decide on a coherent plan of war from inability to analyse scientifically the situation they had to face, and to recognise the general character of the struggle in which they were about to engage."

- From Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (1911).

What I'm Reading: "Some Principles of Maritime Strategy"

Who?

Sir Julian Corbett, British naval historian and strategist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

What?

Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (1911).

Why?

In the early 20th century, Corbett articulated a strategy for maintaining Britain's global pre-eminence. The Royal Navy, the world's greatest seafaring force, would be the main instrument of this policy. It would safeguard the empire by exercising command of the sea, through naval battle, blockade, and controlling global passage and communications.  

This is a doctrine for a global power, not a small country like New Zealand. But I thought that Corbett might have some good ideas for a New Zealand maritime strategy. And there's an interesting historical angle - New Zealand was a member of the British empire, and several generations of Wellington defence planners saw the nation's security as part and parcel of Britain's command of the sea. 

I'm about half-way through the book, and Corbett's thinking on how a weaker power can use a sea denial strategy has caught my eye: "we endeavour by active defensive operations to prevent the enemy either securing or exercising control for the objects he has in view". Corbett emphasized the value of deterring an enemy. He considered that Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 provided a striking example of a small power forcing its will on a much greater power without overthrowing it.

A Secret History of the IRA

Ed Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA (2007) is less the story of one of the world's most enduring guerrilla organizations. It is more an account of Gerry Adams, his rise to power in the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein (the political wing of Irish republicanism), and his secret negotiations with the British and Irish governments, which led to the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday agreement of 1998.

It also details the way that Adams and his lieutenants stealthily manipulated the grassroots IRA into accepting the peace process and its outcomes. These included Sinn Fein's entry into representative politics, a permanent cessation of hostilities by the IRA, and the decommissioning of IRA weapons - all of which had once been anathema to IRA members.

"Seven Pillars of Wisdom" - Classic or Codswallop?

In Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), T E Lawrence wrote of the Arab revolt against Turkish rule in 1917-18, and his role in galvanizing and guiding it. The work has long been regarded as a classic. But is it actually codswallop?

Fabius argues that "some may consider this almost sacrilege but I never liked T E Lawrence. I have read most of Seven Pillars and still have it somewhere among my books but somehow I was very disappointed by it. Maybe I've read too many eulogistic reviews before reading the book itself".

I can understand where Fabius is coming from. The writing in Seven Pillars of Wisdom can be flowery and long-winded. In places, it verges on incomprehensible. But I regard it as a classic war memoir, adventure story, and strategic treatise. Here's three reasons why:

"Dreamers of the Day": John Boyd

Colonel John Boyd said that in life we have a basic choice: to do or to be. Boyd was a distinguished American fighter pilot, air combat theorist, and military thinker. Now, Chicago Boyz is hosting a roundtable discussion on Frans Osinga's Science, Strategy and War (2007), an examination of Boyd's strategic thinking.

Introducing the roundtable, Zenpundit writes:

"Dreamers of the Day": The Civilian Thinkers

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."

        - T E Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

I recently asked the question who are today's military thinkers? In a previous post I listed the military officers that readers nominated. Below I set out the civilian thinkers.

Professor Mary Kaldor: British academic. Key concepts include that of human security: "human security means the protection of individuals and communities as opposed to states and borders".

Professor Martin van Creveld: Israeli historian and war theorist. Has written prolifically about the decline of the state, future warfare, strategy, and key aspects of war like logistics, technology, and manoeuvre warfare.

"Dreamers of the Day": Ted Serong

After reading "Who and Where are Today's Military Thinkers?", Exkiwiforces drew my attention to Australian Brigadier Ted Serong, a noted Cold War counterinsurgency and jungle warfare expert.

Described as a "quiet, deep thinker, brilliant tactician", Ted Serong worked in South Vietnam from 1962 to 1975. Initially in command of Australian army military advisers ('The Team'), and advising the commanders of the US Military Assistance Command, Serong later worked as a civilian adviser to the CIA and the Saigon government.

"Dreamers of the Day": The Military Thinkers

I recently asked the question who are today's military thinkers? I've listed below the military officers that were nominated. In a follow-up post I'll list the civilians.

Serving military officers

General David Petraeus: commander of US forces in Iraq. Led the development of the US army's counter-insurgency doctrine (Army Field Manual 3-24).

Vice Admiral John Morgan: Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information, Plans and Strategy, US Navy. Described by Galrahn as "well ahead of the game in grasping the strategic and tactical ideas of our times".

Who and Where are Today's Military Thinkers?

Quentin recently asked if there are people in western militaries who are "thinking outside the square" about strategy and warfare.

It's a good question and one that I don't have a ready answer for. Over the last 200 years there have been a number of great thinkers, like Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred Mahan, T E Lawrence (pictured), Basil Liddell Hart, J F C Fuller, and John Boyd. They developed general theories about war or thought deeply about the nature and shape of future warfare.

There were also military officers who operationalized radical ideas and thinking. They include Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian, the German pioneers of armoured warfare, along with Orde Wingate and David Stirling, the Brits who trail-blazed the use of special forces in WW2.